The war thus terminated, there seemed no reason for John of Austria to prolong his stay in the province. For some time he had been desirous to obtain the king's consent to his return. His ambitious spirit, impatient of playing a part on what now seemed to him an obscure field of action, pent up within the mountain barrier of the Alpujarras, longed to display itself on a bolder theatre before the world. He aspired, too, to a more independent command. He addressed repeated letters to the king's ministers,--to the Cardinal Espinosa and Gomez de Silva in particular,--to solicit their influence in his behalf. "I should be glad," he wrote to the latter, "to serve his majesty, if I might be allowed, on some business of importance. I wish he may understand that I am no longer a boy. Thank God, I can begin to fly without the aid of others' wings, and it is full time, as I believe, that I was out of swaddling-clothes."[276] In another letter he expresses his desire to have some place more fitting the brother of such a monarch as Philip, and the son of such a father as Charles the Fifth.[277] On more than one occasion he alludes to the command against the Turk as the great object of his ambition. His importunity to be allowed to resign his present office had continued from the beginning of summer, some months before the proper close of the campaign. It may be thought to argue an instability of character, of which a more memorable example was afforded by him at a later period of life. At length he was rejoiced by obtaining the royal consent to resign his command and return to court. [Sidenote: MURDER OF ABEN-ABOO.] On the eleventh of November, Don John repaired to Granada. Till the close of the month he was occupied with making the necessary arrangements preparatory to his departure. The greater part of the army was paid off and disbanded. A sufficient number was reserved to garrison the fortresses and to furnish detachments which were to scour the country and hunt down such Moriscoes as still held out in the mountains. As Requesens was to take part in the expedition against the Ottomans, the office of captain-general was placed in the hands of the valiant duke of Arcos. On the twenty-ninth of November, Don John, having completed his preparations, quitted Granada and set forth on his journey to Madrid, where the popular chieftain was welcomed with enthusiasm by the citizens, as a conqueror returned from a victorious campaign. By Philip and his newly-married bride, Anne of Austria, he was no less kindly greeted; and it was not long before the king gave a substantial proof of his contentment with his brother, by placing in his hands the baton, offered by the allies, of generalissimo in the war against the Turks.